VIII-2. Decolonial Education in South Africa

Conveners: Everisto Benyera (University of South Africa, Pretoria); e-mail: benyee1@unisa.ac.za

South Africa has been undergoing a series of students’ demonstrations across the public universities with students agitating for free decolonised education. These calls are not new and promises for affordable education were made as way back as in the Freedom Charter of 1955. The extent of the demonstrations and the validity of the demands made by these students call to question the success of the decolonisation project and also questions what factors brought African education to where it is today. A situation where the education system produces redundant, unemployable and ‘miseducated’ graduates. This panel proposes to raise the importance of decolonial free education for the realisation of Africa’s development. We will argue that as long as the education system remains western centric, commodified and commercialised, African people including their leaders will remain at the periphery of global affairs.